2010-2011 NBA Season Thread

[Rhinox]

http://www.csnbayarea.com/05/24/11/S...98&feedID=5986

Mike Brown will not be the next head coach of the Golden State Warriors.
Brown, the former coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is expected to be named the new coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, according to two league sources.

Brown was considered a frontrunner for the Warriors' job, but is expected to sign a four-year contract worth approximately $18 million with the Lakers -- succeeding Phil Jackson as coach.

fucking lol

[Tyche]

For whatever reason, the Buss family always had that idea, that a lot of people share, that Phil is just the world's luckiest fucking man ever to grace the earth. Fell into MJ and Pippen, Shaq and Kobe, and rode that shit to 11 titles.

I guess they'll find out how fucking stupid that is once Mike Brown is hired and Kobe carries them to maybe a conference finals appearance once or twice in the next 5 seasons.

[Heavencloud]

I don't see why they hire Brown... The lakers are no better off than the Cavs were with Lebron. Results will be strikingly similar.

[wyrmtung]

Guess Buss reads this forum and saw my post endorsing Brown as their new head coach. Guess he can't read sarcasm.

I've been complaining the last couple of days about dumb coaches who don't know how to call plays out of timeouts and critical possessions. Instead, they just have their main guy go iso and hope for the best. Well, Brown rode that formula all the way to a COY. Gonna be great to see them do that in LaLaLand with an over the hill Kobe.

[Man0warr]

I don't see why they hire Brown... The lakers are no better off than the Cavs were with Lebron. Results will be strikingly similar.

Bynum, Odom, and Gasol are waaaaaaaay better than LeBrons Cav team mates. LeBron Cavs were more similar to Rose Bulls - 1 superstar and a bunch of hard working other guys that had no next level in the playoffs.

Kobe is breaking down though, which is probably the main reason Phil wanted out. He didn't want to be around while Kobe's body fails him while he still thinks he's the best player in the league.

Mike Brown is an idiot though.

[Deejay]

What is this bitch made shit

[Kaslo]

Rhinox sucking off D-Rose gets on my nerves? Since when? Mainly I like to give him hell because D-Rose is like a rich man's Westbrook

[Dimmauk]

Rhinox sucking off D-Rose gets on my nerves? Since when? Mainly I like to give him hell because D-Rose is like a rich man's Westbrook

He is setting the record for the fastest bandwagon evacuation ever.

[Valisk]

Rhinox sucking off D-Rose gets on my nerves? Since when? Mainly I like to give him hell because D-Rose is like a rich man's Westbrook

Rich man's? Nah bro. They are one in the same. Difference is Westbrook has a 2 time scoring champ to pass the ball to but TRIES to do it himself. Rose HAS to do it himself. They both are turnover prone and have a lot of maturing to do. They both have bright futures though. I think those two will be the premiere PG in the years to come.

[Rhinox]

Rhinox sucking off D-Rose gets on my nerves? Since when? Mainly I like to give him hell because D-Rose is like a rich man's Westbrook

nah. 1 has an MVP under his belt the other is stephon marbury v2 who just about cost his team a shot at the finals.

He is setting the record for the fastest bandwagon evacuation ever.

Baby Jordan still my nigga and I wouldn't trade him for anyone in the nba.

[Correction]

I don't see why they hire Brown...

Because the owners are convinced they need to keep Kobe happy, which means a coach who's worked with children while not actually teaching them basketball fundamentals.

[Man0warr]

I figured they would stick with the Triangle.

[Correction]

I figured they would stick with the Triangle.

I was only being half-sarcastic, but even Kobe doesn't stick with the triangle a good third of the time. It's a huge problem with the Lakers offense (and a big part of why they can't get offensive rebounds) and I sincerely doubt promoting a middle school defensive coach is the solution for it.

[Kaslo]

Rich man's? Nah bro. They are one in the same. Difference is Westbrook has a 2 time scoring champ to pass the ball to but TRIES to do it himself. Rose HAS to do it himself. They both are turnover prone and have a lot of maturing to do. They both have bright futures though. I think those two will be the premiere PG in the years to come.

I wouldn't say he TRIES to do it himself, I put that partially on the coaching staff. But also you have to realize his aggressiveness is also a double edged sword, for all the bad there is alot of good. Driving to the lane starts to pull defenders away from double-teaming Durant and freeing the role players. The problem is that in crunch time the coaching staff doesn't run plays, but iso's meant for Durant where he is double teamed or so well defended he can't get open and Russ is forced into a late shot clock "all or nothing" situation.

EDIT: btw there is a good Rose/Russ article by Hollinger on insider, but I can only get an excerpt...

[Tyche]

ROFL @ Lebron mocking Derrick Rose in the post game. I didn't see that last night.

[Baolin]

I wouldn't say he TRIES to do it himself, I put that partially on the coaching staff. But also you have to realize his aggressiveness is also a double edged sword, for all the bad there is alot of good. Driving to the lane starts to pull defenders away from double-teaming Durant and freeing the role players. The problem is that in crunch time the coaching staff doesn't run plays, but iso's meant for Durant where he is double teamed or so well defended he can't get open and Russ is forced into a late shot clock "all or nothing" situation.

EDIT: btw there is a good Rose/Russ article by Hollinger on insider, but I can only get an excerpt...

The article you were referring to, in case anyone else cared to read it:

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The narratives couldn't be more opposite.

Yet, once again, the career paths of Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose couldn't be more similar.

Big picture, these are two of the most unique players in history -- big, athletic, score-first point guards with shaky jump shots but spectacular finishing skills -- and I have a feeling we're going to be watching them in May and June for much of the next decade. Chicago and Oklahoma City were first and second in the Future Power Rankings that colleague Chad Ford and I compiled in March, and it seems inevitable that at some point these two forces of nature will collide in the Finals.

Statistically, they couldn't be more alike, either. They were second and third in the league in usage rate (after Kobe Bryant) and finished within one-hundredth of a point of each other in PER. Rose was first team All-NBA, Westbrook was second. Each is 6-foot-3, was born in late 1988 and was drafted in 2008.

It's somewhat jarring, then, that the narratives about their respective games are so opposed -- suffice it to say that commentators are not pondering trade scenarios for Rose. In fact, Rose's high-usage, middling-efficiency game is viewed as heroic on a Bulls team that surprisingly posted the best record in the league, earning him the MVP award as a result. But on a team with Kevin Durant, Westbrook's similar approach is seen as at best imperfect and at worst downright counterproductive.

Their situations are more similar than you think, however. Westbrook has better weapons alongside him, without question, but those weapons have a curious inability to get themselves open, which often leaves Westbrook in the exact same situation as Rose: holding the bag as the shot clock ticks down. Westbrook is also the more extreme of the two in playing this style -- he takes a higher proportion of his shots at the basket, draws more fouls, shoots worse from outside and makes more questionable decisions.

Yet Rose isn't known as the Human Assist either -- his assist ratio this season, believe it or not, was worse than Westbrook's. This is one of many reasons why I wonder, and will continue to wonder, if we'd see each in the exact opposite light if they switched teams.

Putting aside that conjecture, let's snap back to the present, where we see another great parallel between Rose and Westbrook: Both are shooting blanks in the conference finals, and as a result the Bulls and Thunder have their backs against the wall. Rose is shooting 25-of-64 (39.1 percent) in three games against Miami, while Westbrook is 25-of-72 (34.7 percent) in four games against Dallas.

Once again, each is creating a multitude of shots: They're first and second in playoff usage rate.

Converting shots? Not so much. Rose's postseason true shooting percentage is 51.7 despite his facing some pretty light opposition in the first two rounds, while Westbrook has labored to a 50.1 true shooting percentage.

Additionally, Westbrook has provided more fodder for criticism with a spiking turnover rate -- in the playoffs, he is averaging 5.3 miscues per game and has more turnovers than assists. While it's easy to pile up turnovers with seven games against Memphis' handsy defense, this is still unacceptable.

But to me, the shooting story is the one that really gets interesting. For Westbrook, it's amazing how badly his jump shot has gone off the rails in the postseason. He isn't a good shooter in normal circumstances, but he isn't this awful. In the regular season he was about a 1-in-3 proposition from beyond 15 feet, making 36.0 percent of his shots from 16-23 feet and 33 percent of his 3s.

But in his past 12 playoff games, Westbrook has made only 15 of 56 jump shots (26.8 percent) in the 16-23 foot range, and just 8 of 32 3-pointers. These have nearly all been wide-open shots, too, as opponents continually go under screens and dare him to shoot from outside. Yet since the first two games against Denver, he has been unable to take advantage. As a result, he is shooting a ghastly 34.7 percent for the playoffs. Only his tremendous ability to draw fouls -- he is averaging 11 free throw attempts a game in the postseason -- salvages his stat line.

As for Rose, his floater game has deserted him. As our Tom Haberstroh noted on Twitter, Rose made 57.5 percent of his shots from 3-9 feet in 2009-10, but only 39.7 percent this season and just 32 percent in the playoffs.

And that improved long-range jumper he flashed in the regular season? Not sure where that went. Rose is shooting 26.2 percent on 3s in the playoffs on six attempts a game; even if you subtracted out some 70-foot end-of-the-quarter heaves, it's still a big step back from the regular season.

Rose has made his midrange J against Miami (9-of-19), but as with Westbrook this is the shot opponents want him to take; he made only 38.0 percent from 16-23 feet in the regular season. (Westbrook made 36.0 percent.)

For both, it's the shots at the rim that have been harder to come by and harder to convert. The Miami series has been a steady series of Rose's drives to the rim being snuffed by extra Miami defenders, a theme that will sound familiar to anyone watching the Thunder the past few weeks. Each player shot 60 percent at the rim in the regular season while drawing piles of fouls, but opponents are taking this away and inducing jump shots.

In addition to the cold shooting, both Rose and Westbrook are facing another opponent for the first time: scrutiny. Rose evaded it all year with the Bulls' surprise ascent, but I saw a couple of commentators compare him to Westbrook (in unflattering terms, of course) after some wild shot attempts in Game 3.

Meanwhile, many fans and observers are getting their first extended look at Westbrook and wondering why so many "plays" consist of 15 seconds of dribbling and a missed jump shot. Having taken in heavy doses of OKC the past few weeks, I can tell you that Durant's and James Harden's faltering efforts to move off the ball explain a decent chunk of this, but it's also fair to describe Westbrook's decision-making as badly needing improvement.

So get your shots in now, everyone -- it's only going to get harder from here. Both players are 22, both are ferocious competitors and both are still learning on the fly. Right now Rose is the golden boy and Westbrook is the metaphorical redheaded stepchild, but in the big picture they're birds of a feather. In time, once they figure out what teams are doing to them and come back with better tactics and better jump shots, they're going to be impossible to contain.

Even for each other when they meet head-to-head in the Finals. Which, despite their hiccups in these conference finals and their diametrically opposite narratives, remains a very strong possibility in the near future.

[tyven]

ROFL @ Lebron mocking Derrick Rose in the post game. I didn't see that last night.

what did he do?

[Tyche]

Never called Rose by name, simply "The MVP" when he was interviewed by Sager.

"The MVP had a lot of energy tonight"
"The MVP is very fast and difficult to guard"

[Dimmauk]

John Hollinger just hating on Rose. How dare he compare baby jordan to that chapstick abusing ninja turtle. Nevermind the statistical data and facts, he hate Rose plain and simple.

Someone has to do this since Rhinox already abandoned ship.

[Rhinox]

It's john Hollinger...


Guy that said collision is a superstar and Omer Asik would win dpoy if he's given a chance to start. Baby Jordan doesn't need defending.